Ryder

ten

Darkness. Footsteps running after me. Smoke. Pain. Bloody bullet wounds. Hands grabbing for me, touching me. Grimy and painful and scary. Scaryscaryscary--

I woke up with a jerk, all groggy and tired, and my mouth quite frankly tasting like shit. Groaning, I lifted myself up with the help of my elbows and wished almost instantly to fall back down on the soft bedding beneath me and doze off for a few more minutes. Or maybe even an hour.

Sleep sounded so much nicer and safer than the reality that waited ahead. One that hit me like a bucket of ice-cold water when thin sharp needles pierced my skull. Something shifted from over me and the sudden cool air brushing against my bare shoulders only managed to worsen it all. I looked down and grimaced because I was naked beneath the crisp white hotel sheets.

A hotel room, I nearly groaned again and sat up fully, rubbing my hands down my face and trying to ignore the persistent heavy pounding in my head. It was painful and I hated it.

Only when it lessened a little that I bothered to look around the unfamiliar room I was in, trying to absorb my surroundings and the fact that I was all alone in here. Whoever that had been here with me last night, whoever I'd spent the night with in this very bed, had left already and the only signs of him ever even being here were the slight ruffles of the bedsheets on the other side of me.

Grabbing the sheets and pulling them over me, I decided that this wasn't the time to feel sorry for myself, and pulled up my knees against my chest, pressing my face into them. Trying to take deep breaths.

This was fine. It had to be. It wasn't like I'd never been here before. What won't, however, be fine is if I didn't go back home and face my family one last time before heading back to my university and my quiet little dorm.

"I can do it." I tried reassuring myself--which was a tad bit pathetic considering the current situation I was in--and leaned over the side of the bed, my stomach lurching with the sudden need to throw up every single poisonous thing that I'd consumed before passing out on this godforsaken bed.

My clothes were thrown all across the room in a haste that told me I must've been quite desperate to get laid. Seriously, what was wrong with me? Perhaps facing Michael last night had taken a much bigger toll on me than I'd thought.

My eyes darted towards the side table and I breathed out a tiny sigh of relief when I saw a full glass of water sitting right there, calling out to me. I snatched it and held it between both of my hands, lifting it to my lips and letting out a tiny pleased sigh when cool water met my parched throat. I emptied it in seconds and saw that that hadn't been the only thing occupying the otherwise empty side table.

There was also a torn piece of paper resting on the flat surface, right about to fall over, but I caught it just in time and pulled it closer to read. There wasn't anything much written on it though. It would only be bizarre to hope for heartfelt messages from my late-night hookups when I didn't even remember their faces once I was all sober.

There was a string of numbers scribbled right in between, a phone number, and there was a name written beneath it as well.

"Ardan," I read the name. I tried remembering if he'd told me his name last night when we'd both been drunk, but even if he had, I still couldn't make myself remember. I didn't even remember what he'd looked like. All I remembered were flashes of a smile--a carefree, boyish smile--sighs and moans and this desperation buzzing just beneath my skin as all the layers of clothes had come off.

I liked not to remember too much of my time spent under the haze of alcohol. Wasn't that the whole point of getting drunk? Forgetting everything for that one moment?